A day after Ottawa designated space and drone technology as “key sovereign capabilities” in its new Defence Industrial Strategy, the government is putting money on the table right away for a specific challenge.
The Department of National Defence is injecting up to $50 million to establish highly classified research Defence Innovation Secure Hubs (DISHs), challenging Canadian tech firms and universities to build homegrown quantum computing and uncrewed systems (UxS).
The challenge is being led by the newly established Bureau of Research, Engineering and Advanced Leadership in Innovation and Science (BOREALIS) and is being delivered through the Innovation in Defence Excellence and Security (IDEaS) program.
DND isn’t looking to build new facilities but rather”support the establishment and secure enablement of existing facilities as DISHs” that meet Level II (Secret) clearance. Up to 50% of the funding can go strictly to securing and retrofitting the physical/digital infrastructure.
Federal entities cannot apply. Proposals require a multidisciplinary consortium of at least two Canadian partners (universities, for-profits, not-for-profits, local governments). The deadline for the challenge is April 2, 2026, 2 p.m. EDT.
Funding is in the form of a non-repayable contribution across the two streams (quantum and UxS). In FY 2026-27 DND said that funding would be “in the range of approximately $5–10 million, depending on the scope and scale of proposed establishment and early delivery activities.” For FY 2027-28 funding would be “in the range of approximately $10–15 million, depending on the scope and scale of scaled operations and programmatic activity.” The contribution from this challenge would run until the end of March 2028.
The first DISH location, Maritime DISH, was announced with $29.4M in funding on Nov. 25, 2025 by the Department of National Defence (DND) Minister David McGuinty and is based at COVE in Halifax.
At the time of the announcement, McGuinty said, “We need to set up our industry for success – and we cannot do that if our armed forces and businesses are unable to share critical information.”